¹ For coverage of the security legislation and cases made by its critics, see Hornung, Jeffrey. “Abe on His Heels: The Prime Minister's Domestic Standing After the Security Reforms.” (https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/japan/abe-his-heels) Foreign Affairs, 19 September 2015; Asahi shinbun (http://www.asahi.com/extra/articles/SDI201509192709.html) 19 September 2015. The Japanese press was particularly concerned by foreign coverage of the rumble in the Diet and the demonstrators outside the building; see the Asahi shinbun's timeline (http://www.asahi.com/topics/timeline/?keyword=平和憲法) on the heiwa kenpō (Peace Constitution).

² This event attracted considerable notice within and outside Japan. See here (http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/08/30/us-japan-politics-protest-idUSKCN0QZ0C320150830).

³ Asahi shinbun (http://www.asahi.com/articles/ASH9F659TH9FUZPS569.html) 14 September 2015.

⁴ For an overview of Soka Gakkai, see here (http://www.wrs.vcu.edu/profiles/SokaGakkai.htm) and McLaughlin, Levi, “Sōka Gakkai in Japan,” in Nelson, John and Inken Prohl, eds. Brill Handbook of Contemporary Japanese Religion. Brill: Handbooks on Contemporary Religion, 2012: 269-308. For a detailed examination of Komeito, see Ehrhardt, George, Axel Klein, Levi McLaughlin, and Steven S. Reed, eds., Kōmeitō: Religion and Politics in Japan. University of California, Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies Japan Research Monographs Series 18, 2014.

⁵ A collection of these striking images, which circulated via Twitter, Youtube, and other platforms, is available here (http://togetter.com/li/867610).

⁶ For a quantified analysis of Komeito's high statistical average of electoral successes, a rate that depends on the party's ability to assess its chances based on 1) the number of Soka Gakkai voters in each district and 2) the assumption that Gakkai voter turnout is almost equal to the number of Gakkai adherents of voting age, see Smith, Daniel M. “Party Ideals and Practical Constraints in Komeito Candidate Nominations,” in Ehrhardt et al., 2014, 139-162.

⁷ For discussions of social welfare-oriented concessions and other policies Komeito has fought for in coalition, see Hasunuma, Linda, and Axel Klein, “Komeito in Coalition,” in Ehrhardt et al. 2014, 240-265.

⁸ See coverage of this from October 13, 2015 in the Japan Times (http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2015/10/13/business/economy-business/government-considers-multiple-levels-2017-consumption-tax-hike/#.Vh1lW7RViko) and October 14, 2015 from the Yomiuri shinbun (http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/politics/20151013-OYT1T50109.html?from=ytop_top).

⁹ Murakami Shigeyoshi, Sōka gakkai = Kōmeitō. Tokyo: Aoki Shoten, 1967. Shimada Hiromi. Kōmeitō vs. Sōka Gakkai. Tokyo: Asahi Shinsho, 2007.

¹⁰ The Asia-Pacific Journal has provided considerable coverage of SEALDs. See here (http://www.japanfocus.org/-Chiharu-Takano/4375/article.html) and here (https://apjjf.org/-Robm-O_Day/4376/artide.html) for key resources.

¹¹ See here (https://twitter.com/rockin_revo/status/621579865813200896). Ōbai Tori's Twitter feed is accessible here: https://twitter.com/obtr3.

¹² Discussions of the split between Soka Gakkai and Nichiren Shōshū appear in McLaughlin 2012.

¹³ Soka Gakkai members would locate Nichiren's discussion of ōbai tōri in the Ongi kuden as it appears on page 784 in the Nichiren Daishōnin gosho zenshū (Tokyo: Soka Gakkai), Soka Gakkai's 1952 edited collection of Nichiren's writings better known to its adherents as the Gosho: “When one comes to see that each - the cherry, plum, peach, and damson - is a thing that is, in itself, the uncreated three bodies [understood here to refer to the True Buddha] without undergoing change, this is the definition of all- encompassing.”

¹⁴ Ikeda expounded numerous times on ōbai tori. Members today will most likely encounter his thoughts on this topic in a recent reprint of one of his more popular works: Ikeda Daisaku, Kōfuku to heiwa o tsukuru chie dai ni-bu (jō). Tokyo: Seikyō Shinbun, 2015.

¹⁵ Many papers and broadcast media outlets carried coverage of the Gakkai protestors. These images appeared early on Ideanews (http://ideanews.jp/archives/6324), a blog maintained by the journalist Hashimoto Masato, and circulated widely through social media. See here (https://www.facebook.com/groups/1490510651236516/).

¹⁷ For an examination of kokka kangyō carried out by Nichiren Buddhists from Nichiren himself to the twentieth century, see Stone, Jacqueline I., “Rebuking the Enemies of the Lotus: Nichirenist Exclusivism in Historical Perspective.” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 21 2-3, 1994, 231-259.

¹⁸ Quoted in Nihon keizai shinbun (http://www.nikkei.com/article/DGKKASDE25H03_V20C15A7PE8000/) 26 July 2015. It is important to note that Murayama, as head of the Japan Socialist Party, cooperated with former Komeito politicians in coalition government in the mid-1990s and that he was deeply invested in security legislation issues for his entire career. His own reinterpretation in the mid-1990s as Prime Minister recognizing the constitutionality of the SDF and the U.S.- Japan Security Treaty changed the Japan Socialist Party's longstanding opposition to these institutions.

¹⁹ Mainichi shinbun 3 August 2015.

²⁰ Mainichi shinbun 5 August 2015.

²¹ For Shimazono's Twitter feed see here (https://twitter.com/shimazono), and for his blog, see here (http://shimazono.spinavi.net/).

²² See, for instance, Shimazono's analyses (http://shimazono.spinavi.net/?p=675) of Ikeda's stance on collective self-defense, an analysis that quotes extensively from the Toynbee-Ikeda exchange 1972 that was published in English as Choose Life: A Dialogue (New York: I.B. Taurus, 2007).

²³ Twitter feed accessible here (https://twitter.com/amachin888).

²⁴ Amano's petition and appeal appear on his blog (https://hakushi.amebaownd.com/). This site includes a link to a Youtube clip of him submitting the petition and a chronicle of support he has received from like-minded Gakkai adherents.

²⁵ The petition and the Yūshi no Kai's manifesto (in Japanese, English, Spanish, and Italian) is available here (http://sokauniv-nowar.strikingly.com/). A Twitter and blog from a related organization that sent out a “Statement of Opposition to the Security-Related Bills, by Soka Alumni - Friends of Article 9,” a separate effort that has gathered over 300 signatures, are available here (https://twitter.com/sokaalumnipeace) and here (http://blog.sokaalumni-peace.com/).

²⁶ Galtung, Johan and Daisaku Ikeda, Choose Peace: A Dialogue Between Johan Galtung & Daisaku Ikeda. London: Pluto Press, 1995.

²⁷ An interview carried out by the Sasakawa Peace Foundation USA with Kitagawa in which he outlines these points is available here (http://spfusa.org/nippon-com/limited-exercise-of-collective-self-defense/).

²⁸ These shifts are discussed in Klein, Axel, “Komeito - Rock ‘n' Row the Coalition Boat,” in Pekkanen, Robert J., Steven Reed, and Ethan Scheiner, eds. Japan Decides 2014: The Japanese General Election. London: Palgrave MacMillan, forthcoming, 72-86.

²⁹ For Toyama's full explanation, see here (http://toyamakiyohiko.com/know/2015/09/6192.html).

³⁰ See Ueda's discussions on this point (https://www.isamu-u.com/2015/07/21/【いさむ の一言（7月21日）】安全保障政策のあり/).

³¹ For analysis of Komeito's emphasis on jitsugenryoku, see Hasunuma and Klein, 2014.

³² Correspondence with senior Gakkai administrator, 9 August 2015. Nikkan gendai (http://www.nikkan-gendai.com/articles/view/news/163338/3) 3 September 2015.

³⁴ All names of Gakkai members in this episode and in the accounts that appear below are pseudonyms.

³⁵ Found on pages 1192-1193 of the Nichiren Daishōnin gosho zenshū reproduced in part, with interpretation offered by Ikeda Daisaku, in the June 2013 issue of Daibyaku renge, Soka Gakkai's monthly study magazine.

³⁶ George Ehrhardt discusses the f-tori tactic of gaining non-member votes in “Housewife Voters and Komeito Policies,” in Ehrhardt et al., 2014, 187-211.

³⁷ This account of Soka Gakkai and Komeito's development is derived from McLaughlin, Levi, “Electioneering as Religious Practice: A History of Sōka Gakkai's Political Activities to 1970,” in Ehrhardt et al., 2014, 51-82.

³⁸ Reproduced in Ikeda Daisaku no kiseki Henshū Iinkai, ed., Ikeda Daisaku no kiseki Vol. 1. Tokyo: Ushio Shuppansha 2004, 11.

³⁹ Toda Jōsei, Kantōgenshū. Tokyo: Sōka Gakkai, 1956, 204.

⁴⁰ Other religious organizations make their presence felt in Japanese electoral politics, yet no other organization has yet come close to matching Soka Gakkai in this arena. For discussions of why this may be the case, see Klein, Axel, and Steven R. Reed, “Religious Groups in Japanese Electoral Politics,” in Ehrhardt et al., 2014, 25-48.

⁴¹ LDP-Komeito negotiations from the party's founding through diplomatic normalization with China and other key episodes up to the 1999 coalition agreement, are detailed in Abe, Yuki and Masahisa Endo, “Komeito's Uncertain Decades between Religion and Politics,” in Ehrhardt et al. 2014, 83-109.

⁴² Realistic assessments of Soka Gakkai's membership place its membership at approximately 2% of the Japanese population. See McLaughlin 2012.

⁴³ The Soka Gakkai Peace Committee (Soka Gakkai Heiwa Iinkai) released its statement in Japanese as “Shūsen / hibaku 70-nen ni yosete” in the Seikyō shinbun on 15 August 2015 and in English as “Upholding the Sanctity of Life” in the SGI-USA newspaper World Tribune on 4 September 2015. Intriguingly, the statement's opening passages, which acknowledge Japanese responsibility for war atrocities in China, Korea, and other Asian countries, bring to mind the language of apology the Japanese government is frequently critiqued for not employing.

⁴⁴ Gakkai members turn to a detailed account of Toda's 1957 address in the “Senden” [Address] chapter of the novelized history of Soka Gakkai titled Ningen kakumei [The Human Revolution], Vol. 12 (Ikeda Daisaku, Ningen kakumei Vol. 12. Tokyo: Seikyō Shinbun, 2007, 89-156). A partial English translation of his address is available here (http://www.joseitoda.org/vision/declaration/), a site maintained by Soka Gakkai International.

⁴⁵ The 2015 Peace Proposal, titled “A Shared Pledge for a More Humane Future: To Eliminate Misery from the Earth” (http://www.daisakuikeda.org/assets/files/peaceproposal2015.pdf).

⁴⁶ In December 1995, Ikeda met in Tokyo with the Argentinian human rights activist and Nobel Peace laureate Adolfo Pérez Esquivel for a dialogue that was translated as “Message for the Age of Human Rights - What does the Third Millenium Require?” (http://www.iop.or.jp/Documents/0717/ikeda_esquivel.pdf). In this exchange, Ikeda cited his mentor Toda on the topic of inter-religious cooperation, crediting Toda with the following: “If giants like Nichiren Daishonin, Shakyamuni, Jesus Christ, Mohammed, Marx, and others could come together for a conference they would talk in terms of compassion and love. They would discuss, make concessions, and respect each other. For the attainment of the eternal happiness of humanity, their great shared goal, they would abolish war, violence, and conflict and would agree perfectly on ways to bring real peace and true prosperity.” This stance differs considerably from the many harsh critiques Toda leveled at jakyō (heterodox faiths), a term he applied to every religion outside Nichiren Shōshū Buddhism, and the tone struck by Gakkai publications under his auspices, including the 1951 Shakubuku kyōten [Handbook of Conversion], which provided Gakkai members with detailed arguments to use against rival religions, including Christianity.

⁴⁷ Nichiren set out the five comparisons in his Kaimokushō [Opening of the Eyes] that later Nichiren scholars codified as the gojū no sōtai (fivefold comparison) to reinforce Nichiren's argument for the superiority of exclusive embrace of the Lotus over all other teachings. In her analysis of Nichiren's categories, Jacqueline Stone notes that Nichiren was carrying out his own version of kyōhan (doctrinal classification), effectively elaborating on the Tendai Buddhist tradition in which he was trained. See Stone, Jacqueline, Original Enlightenment and the Transformation of Medieval Japanese Buddhism. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1999, 265-266. One might posit that Nishino and his colleagues are, in effect, extending the Nichiren Buddhist tradition of kyōhan.

⁴⁸ “Worms within the lion's body” (shishi shinchū no mushi) is an analogy from the Brahmā Net Sutra that refers to evil monks who destroy the dharma from within the Buddhist community.

⁴⁹ Ishin tai'e, “substituting faith for wisdom,” is a principle derived from the Lotus Sutra, in which Śāriputra, the wisest of the Buddha Śākyamuni's disciples, obtains enlightenment through faith alone. Nichiren held forth on this principle in his 1277 treatise Shishin gohonshō, “On the Four stages of Faith and the Five Stages of Practice.” Gosho, 338-343.

⁵⁰ Hokkekō is a Nichiren Shōshū lay organization that opposes Soka Gakkai. First established in 1962, it gained converts after ex- Gakkai members joined in the wake of the 1991 Soka Gakkai / Nichiren Shōshū schism. Hokkekō is routinely vilified by Gakkai leaders as a nefarious force bent on perverting the dharma, and, as Tsuda's remarks indicate, Gakkai members remain vigilant for signs of Hokkekō members in their midst.

⁵¹ Fisker-Nielsen, Anne Mette. Religion and Politics in Contemporary Japan: Soka Gakkai Youth and Komeito. London and New York: Routledge, 2012. Chapter 3, “A Case of Interpretation? Komeito Supporters as Political Pawns, Right-Wing Collaborators, or Political Actors” details voter attitudes during the pivotal events of the Iraq dispatch.

⁵² Kisala, Robert. Prophets of Peace: Pacifism and Cultural Identity in Japan's New Religions. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 1999, 84.

⁵³ Komeito posts all of its election results on its homepage (https://www.komei.or.jp/election/result/).

⁵⁴ Scott, James C. Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985.

⁵⁵ Data to support Reed's observations were discussed by NHK commentator Adachi Yoshimasa (http://www.nhk.or.jp/kaisetsu-blog/100/192994.html) on 15 July 2014 and by the Sankei shinbun (http://www.sankei.com/politics/news/140724/plt1407240021-n1.html) on 24 July 2014.